


Plutonium Chips

by tackeart



Series: tack's snips [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-02-22 22:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23934619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackeart/pseuds/tackeart
Summary: A collection of short-ish oneshots(?). Mostly bad. Fallout-adjacent.Canon will be used and discarded as is necessary.  Pains will be taken to note when it is being remixed to avoid being mistaken for fanon.
Series: tack's snips [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725271





	1. Deacon Takes A Break

It started, as usual, with P.A.M. 

More specifically, with long-forgotten patches into BosCom infrastructure and a vault that had been forgotten about by all but that one asshole in Goodneighbor who wouldn’t stop moaning about having been a Very Important Vault-Tec Marketing Representative to people who really just wanted to get back to their mission to keep the entire Railroad from collapsing like a deck of cards. Encrypted communications were humming across cables that hadn’t seen action since before Deacon’s birth, murky traffic spiking up just enough for interested parties to notice. Quoth the master of behavioural algorithms: _Ninety-five percent chance of archival reference ID VT-111 dispatching residents within five days of transmission._

So, following some hasty meetings on the likelihood of 111 being _numero duo_ to compete with Vaults on a national level for failures in scientific ethics, Deacon was of course the one volunteered to go welcome who-or-whatever showed up. Twenty miles of bandits, miserable cold autumn winds, and occasional Institute patrols left him somewhere in the ass-end of Concord past a fierce gunfight and a seriously annoyingly affectionate dog. 

To fight this theoretically terrifying threat, Deacon had come prepared with an unopened beer, some pocket lint, two full magazines with two extra ten round clips of armour piercing ammunition, and a like-new Colt Rangemaster featuring the ever-venerable Loophole x20. (Now available at any local gun store at the low, low price of three thousand dollars.)

After five days, there had yet to be any psychopathic drug addicts, insane clones, crazy combat robots, drug addicted psychopaths, omnicidal puppet fetishists, or whatever the hell else (plant monsters?) was eager to crawl from Vault-Tec's maggot-riddled remains and ruin what meager civilisation was left. Just a few wild animals, one or two packs of naked mole rats, the occasional pop of gunfire from the south..

As much as he hated the whole inaction thing, Deacon mused, it wasn't all that bad. Being out in the sticks made a nice break from all the ultraviolent fervour Boston instilled in its inhabitants. There was time to admire the pine trees rustling in the wind, a decent stock of game, and cheap entertainment in the poor bastard robot trying to trim the lawn for two centuries straight. He was running low on rations, though. And there weren’t any safehouses up here, so he was out of reach if something happened back in Boston. It was an odd thought. The town was decently out of the eye of anything dangerous, and that river made it mildly more defensible. If he pretended he was going to live long enough, this might even make a decent spot to retire. Manage ops for once, instead of getting his hands dirty—

A distant screech of metal, and he scrambled for his rifle.

He had fallen into a daydream like a barely observant idiot. The peculiar vault entrance had already slid downwards. Whatever it was could operate the hatch, and might already be coming up depending on shelter depth, but that mechanism didn’t seem good for safely transporting something heavy like a Deathclaw. Dwellers like eighty-one, more Goddamn super mutants, maybe—

A woman's head peeked over the top. Followed by the rest of her. She clutched a pistol in one limp hand, and her right hand was encased in the familiar silhouette of a Pip-Boy. Deacon's finger slid off the trigger (had he even noticed it was there?), and he let himself breathe. The dweller, for her part, staggered off the hideous giant gear, fell to her knees, and shook like a leaf. 

Nothing important. Just another innocent for the Commonwealth to rip to pieces.

He had nothing else to do here.

 _Well,_ Deacon thought, _at least I didn't have to shoot anybody today._

He packed up and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the Railroad observation point present near Vault 111 and the near certainty that Deacon was the man at the chair. Editing is very, very ramshackle due to only recently being rewritten up to standard. 
> 
> Some notes: 
> 
> The distance between Old North Church and Sanctuary is based off the real travel time between ONC and the Minute Man Statue present at the entrance to where Sanctuary would be in real life. The Loophole x20 is the brand name for the scope on the Rangemaster in Fallout 2, which does in fact have a ten-round magazine capacity. While its price is made up, it is calculated from 3.5-4x that of modern semiautomatic hunting rifles.


	2. a body in the desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mercenary earns his keep. Set before/during New Vegas.

The fat man wheezed, rolling away from the fallen hat. "Please, you don't have to do this. I have a lot of caps, I can—” 

"Shut the fuck up.” 

Moonlight drifted down, touching on the site; A long-abandoned sprawl of concrete and wood past wrecked fencing, sheet-metal trailers fit for a few squatters to shoot up in, and a ramshackle truck with engine still pop-crack-wheezing from two hours of burning shit-quality diesel. 

Unbelievably, he still didn't get it. "Listen. You don’t need to treat me like this, I can— _humph_!" He gestured, and his second's boot rested on the fuck’s stomach, stopping him from spewing any further. The mercenary knelt down. 

"I don't give a shit. Let me lay this out for you: The boss wants you dead or gone. I am being paid a very hefty sum to fulfill either of those conditions, which includes a bonus based on just how far I lug you from the Hub." He raises his hand, and the boot lifts. The mark whimpers out what could’ve been acknowledgement. He kept going. "..Not entirely sure why he doesn’t disappear you into a vat of acid, but it’s none of my concern. Just your good luck. My concern is your choice. Are you going to walk?"

"I— I don't understand. Walk to where? There's nothing out here for miles, I can't just leave my position in the Hub for thi—" His third loses her patience and directs a kick to his face blood and teeth fly out into the moonlight and there’s pained screams from the target flailing and clutching his jaw— 

The contractor raises his hand once more, and the third halts in the middle of drawing her knife. He points towards the truck, and she heads off to start it. 

"You know what? Fuck it. Not worth negotiating with a fucking idiot.” He hauled the sobbing little shit up to his knees. His second perched the hat back on the mark’s head, for good measure. 

A gunshot echoed across the wasteland.  
•

The desert moves as it always has. Desperate men fleeing raiders hot on their tail, bored rangers on patrol, expeditions out for new territory.

Uniformed soldiers, for the first time since before the bombs. All passed the rotting corpse, but none touched it. The desert had taken what was its by right. If anything had pull over weeks of dune and rock, it was superstition; Nobody wanted the ghosts this scavenger-touched thing held. 

Time passed. Scouts with dusty binoculars heralded untold amounts of infantry. Trucks, jeeps. Caravans. 

Rail-laying sappers.

The soldiers bring men in shackles to the concrete sprawl, and guards, and dynamite— A volatile combination. They mix, crushing inward, then scattering vile robbers all around. But the bones remain, untouched.

Now the roads are worn again by feet and wheels and hooves, and the skeleton still lies there, hidden near the former prison. The hat, untouched by a century's worth of conditions. A woman stands over it, blinking in the hot sun, bristling with weapons. She kneels, takes from the desert.

And places it upon her head.

The jail won’t last her visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written in mid 2019. The NCRCF is probably further than two hours drive from the Hub.
> 
> According to the Fallout Bible, there is a sizable amount of vehicles in the NCR as of Fallout 2- One for every two hundred people, most of which are shoddy farming machinery such as tractors. The Bible also suggests they have mechanised divisions. In New Vegas, you can see the NCR railroad for yourself, although there's never any trains on it.


End file.
